Alexander Thelen » Planetary Group

AlexanderThelen

Education

Biographical Info

Research

I am interested in exploring both the fields of planetary and exoplanetary physics and galaxy evolution at NMSU. I began working with Dr. Nancy Chanover in the planetary group in August 2013.

I worked with Dr. Puragra Guha Thakurta and the Spectroscopic and Photometric Landscape of Andromeda’s Stellar Halo (SPLASH) survey team, studying diffuse ionized gas in the disk of the nearby Andromeda Galaxy (M31). I developed a cross-correlation technique to identify and measure Doppler shifts in two-dimensional spectra obtained with the DEIMOS spectrograph on the Keck telescopes, focusing on measuring the intensity of Hα, [N II], and [S II] emission lines from ionized gas regions.

Publications

Meetings Attended

Meeting 1

Meeting 2

Teaching and Outreach Activities

I have worked to mentor high school students in the Science Internship Program (SIP) at UCSC. We engaged summer interns in our SPLASH research program, having them reduce and analyze Keck+DEIMOS telescope spectra and learn about the underlying physics of ionized gas regions.